MN study of Drug company payments makes NYTimes!

Doctors’ Ties to Drug Makers Are Put on Close View

Excerpt:

Dr. Allan Collins may be the most influential kidney specialist in the country. He is president of the National Kidney Foundation and director of a government-financed research center on kidney disease.

In 2004, the year he was chosen as president-elect of the kidney foundation, the pharmaceutical company Amgen, which makes the most expensive drugs used in the treatment of kidney disease, underwrote more than $1.9 million worth of research and education programs led by Dr. Collins, according to records examined by The New York Times. In 2005, Amgen paid Dr. Collins at least $25,800, mostly in consulting and speaking fees, the records show.

The payments to Dr. Collins and the research center appear in an unusual set of records. They come from Minnesota, the first of a handful of states to pass a law requiring drug makers to disclose payments to doctors. The Minnesota records are a window on the widespread financial ties between pharmaceutical companies and the doctors who prescribe and recommend their products. Patient advocacy groups and many doctors themselves have long complained that drug companies exert undue influence on doctors, but the extent of such payments has been hard to quantify.

From the Star Tribune:

How much do drug companies pay doctors?

Excerpt:

Today, the group is reporting that at least 14 percent of Minnesota doctors received $100 or more from drug companies between 2002 and 2004, including many who got tens of thousands of dollars, and one who reportedly topped $1 million. "I suspect the number is considerably higher, but I can't tell you what it is," Dr. Peter Lurie said in today's report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Comment: Looks like better reporting is needed!